PRESS CONFERENCE BY PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SIERRA LEONE
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE BY PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SIERRA LEONE
19970609
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
James L. Jonah, Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone, told a Headquarters press conference this morning that the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah supported all diplomatic efforts to end the illegal coup d'etat in the country.
Mr. Jonah said the government would not negotiate on the restoration of the constitutional government of Sierra Leone. "It is non-negotiable", he said. It was in that context, he added, that President Kabbah was willing to see what a current effort of the Government of Ghana could produce. (A Ghanaian delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister James Victor Gbeho met the coup leaders in Freetown last week and is meeting with some government leaders in the subregion.)
Mr. Jonah said he had been asked by President Kabbah to underline the fact that the situation in Sierra Leone was deteriorating by the hour and that the people were suffering immensely. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel force which signed a peace agreement with the Government of Sierra Leone on 30 November 1996 in Abidjan to end five years of civil war, now seemed to be in a dominant position in the junta. Its members were harassing citizens in the capital, Freetown, and coercing them.
That had created a very grave situation, Mr. Jonah said. The citizens were "voting by their feet by leaving the country in large numbers". Those who could not afford to do so were suffering, he added. His government had evidence that the junta and the RUF planned genocide in the event of what they considered intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In the light of the experience of Rwanda, he had met this morning with the President of the Security Council, Sergey V. Lavrov (Russian Federation), to warn about the planned genocide.
On a personal note, he said military personnel had gone to the homes of his relatives to warn them that unless he condemned any Nigerian intervention, they would be killed. He had therefore asked the President of the Security Council to inform Council members to be prepared and give serious consideration to the setting up of a tribunal on genocide. The tribunal should hold all members of the ruling military council in Sierra Leone, including RUF leader Foday Sankoh, should any harm come to the people of Sierra Leone.
He said President Kabbah had been "extremely pleased" with the outcome of last week's Harare summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). As correspondents might know, the summit had declared support for the Kabbah government and condemned the coup d'etat, he said, adding that the OAU had
broken new grounds in its "determination to teach military personnel a lesson: that Africa can no longer tolerate military regimes". His government had also been particularly pleased about the summit's call on ECOWAS to assist the people of Sierra Leone to reverse the coup d'etat.
A correspondent asked whether the planned genocide was aimed at a specific ethnic group or supporters of the previous government. Mr. Jonah replied the target were the supporters of the Kabbah government. The junta had been calling on citizens to demonstrate their support for the regime. "I can tell you that they had not got that support and have resorted to coercive measures to produce compliance." Workers had not been to their offices since the coup on 25 May and last Friday soldiers went to homes to force people at gun-point to return to work. A meeting called by the regime at the national stadium in Freetown yesterday was "a big flop". The regime, in anger, particularly RUF personnel, was prepared to slaughter anyone who did not support them.
Replying to a question about Nigerian intervention, he recalled that he had told correspondents that its involvement was seen by his government as an ECOWAS effort. President Kabbah was prepared to allow the Ghanaian efforts to continue to see what it could achieve. He was very concerned that there should be no further civilian casualties. It was important at present that no government recognize the illegal regime and that the people continue, as they had been doing, to demonstrate their non-acceptance of the regime.
Would ECOWAS seek a mandate from the Security Council or would it go ahead and mount a military action? a correspondent asked. The issue had come up at his meeting with the President of the Security Council, he said. He had informed him that the government of Sierra Leone was not seeking a Council meeting. "We believe that ECOWAS has full authority to take any action if it is necessary." A Security Council resolution was not necessary as had happened in similar situations in the past in many countries. The self- defence provisions of Article 51 of the United Nations Charter could be invoked.
Should the role of the Security Council now be to establish an ad hoc tribunal? a correspondent asked. Mr. Jonah said the Council should know as the situation was serious. Responding to another question, he said that civil society was refusing to cooperate with the regime and had denounced the coup. Many of them, however, had also said they did not favour outside intervention at that stage.
Mr. Jonah said, in response to a further question, that the RUF had a separate agenda and that it wanted to rule the country "by hook or by crook". The problem the country faced was the hidden agenda of the army and the RUF. He observed that the RUF seemed to be "calling the shots in Sierra Leone, and that is a very dangerous thing" for the country.
Jonah Press Conference - 3 - 9 June 1997
Explaining the Ghanaian position in response to a question, Mr. Jonah said the Ghana Government had said that it was willing to participate alongside ECOWAS members to reverse the coup, but wanted to consult with them before taking some action. That was what it was doing with its mission. President Kabbah was prepared to allow Ghana time to continue with its efforts. The Ghanaian delegation had visited Nigeria and was to go to Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea as well.
Asked why President Kabbah did not attend the OAU summit, Mr. Jonah said the President, who was in Guinea, had hoped that there would be a change in the attitude of the coup plotters so that he could move quickly to reassure his people that he was "safe and prepared to carry on". It would have been "cumbersome for him to travel back" had he gone to Harare for the summit, Mr. Jonah asserted.
He confirmed a comment by a correspondent that President Kabbah had sent to the President of the Security Council a copy of a letter he had addressed to Nigerian Head of State General Sani Abacha, accepting an agreement worked out by the United Kingdom, United States and others with the junta in Sierra Leone. Under the agreement, all those involved in the coup d'etat would be granted amnesty, constitutional government would be restored and grievances of the army would be looked into. A proposal by the junta to stay in power for 18 months before handing over to civilian rule was a pretext to loot the country further.
Asked whether ECOWAS could resolve the Sierra Leone crisis far more quickly than it had in Liberia, Mr. Jonah said the two cases were different: Liberia had no government at the time of ECOWAS involvement, while in Sierra Leone a constitutional government elected by the people was in place. There was also no tribal warfare going on, although the RUF had tried unsuccessfully to stimulate one.
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